Miss California
by ArtooC
Summary: Ryan Atwood is in for one hell of a wild night.
1. Prologue

Author's note: So this is my first fic in three and a half years. Please be kind, and let me know if I should keep on going or not. If I do, I can promise an elephant in chapter three. I'm not kidding.

Also, the title may be a wee bit misleading at the moment...I promise that you'll understand when all is said and done.

Disclaimer: Don't own a damn thing. Wish I owned the elephant, though. That would be cool.

Rating: R for language, I'm guessing, 'cause....damn, bitch.

Prologue

All things considered, he should have seen it coming.

"All things," in this case, were the untrustworthiness of Julie Cooper, the immorality of Caleb Nichol, the general havoc caused by the combination thereof, Marissa's penchant for ruining his nights, the relative calm in which he had been living for the past few weeks and his own uncanny ability to have absolutely everything in his life go wrong at the exact same time.

It had started out so simply, so innocently. Kirsten had started it, in fact. Generally speaking, one could trust Kirsten.

"Ryan!" The call came from inside the kitchen. Ryan meandered in from where he had been pitting Pikachu against Yoshi in a titanic Smash Bros. grudge match and noticed that Kirsten was – there was no other way to say it – flipping out.

"Ryan, what are you doing right now? – oh, _damn_." This was said somewhat breathlessly, as Kirsten managed to drop an entire folder of papers onto the floor, where they skidded across the room.

"Helping you?" he guessed as he knelt down to help her gather her files.

"Oh, that would be wonderful. I wouldn't ask, only Sandy will be working late and Seth is nowhere to be found, and I've got to get these things over to the contractors or they'll never get done on time and then we won't be able to show the house on time and for some reason I can't find my keys – "

"Whoa, whoa, it's okay!" he said bemusedly, putting an end to her outburst. "What do you need me to do?"

She stopped scrabbling at papers, smiled, and grabbed an envelope from the countertop. "Just drop this check off at my office. It needs to get there today. Is that okay?"

"Yeah, sure it is," he answered, taking the check from her. "Anything else?"

"That's it. Take the Range Rover. Thank you so much, Ryan – you're a lifesaver."

"No problem. See you for dinner." He headed out the door and hopped in the Range Rover, pulled out of the driveway, and turned towards the Newport Group and Julie Cooper.

Yeah, he definitely should have seen it coming.


	2. Ryan vs Julie

Disclaimer: Don't own a damn thing.

Chapter One: Ryan vs. Julie

Ring, ring.

"Hello?"

"Linds? It's me."

"Ryan! Um, how are you?"

"Lindsay. You saw me an hour ago."

"Right. Right. I know that. Ow!"

"...Sorry?"

"Nothing. Sorry, I'm a little distracted. Never try to separate a puppy from another puppy. Especially when they're happy."

"...."

"Ryan?"

"Lindsay, why are there multiple puppies at your house?"

"...."

"Lindsay?"

"They're from Caleb."

"Ah."

"Yeah. I guess he thinks that every little girl needs a puppy or two. Or five. Talk about excessive. I don't know what I'm going to do with these guys. I mean, they are really cute, but...."

"But they're from Caleb."

"Right."

"What are you going to name them?"

"Hmmm....I'm not sure. Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail....I probably won't even – hey! Stop that! Oh, damn, damn, _damn_."

"Linds?"

"Nothing. God. I mean, Mopsy here just ate my earring. The one my grandmother gave me. Oh god_dammit_. It's my own stupid fault, I shouldn't have left it lying around...God! I can't stand this."

"Lindsay, are you okay? You sound like..."

"...I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm just sick of this. I don't want to be here anymore."

"Do you want to come over tonight? We could just watch movies, hang out – very chill. Nothing stressful."

"Yeah, that sounds good. What movie?"

"Your pick."

"Hm....feeling adventurous, are we, Ryan Atwood?"

"That's me. Come by around eight?"

"Sounds perfect."

"See you then."

"Wait, Ryan?"

"Yeah?"

"...Thanks."

"Hey. Anytime. I'll see you tonight."

"Bye."

It was a pretty nice day, he decided. Pocketing his brand new cell phone, he strolled into the Newport Group offices with an uncharacteristic spring in his step. Usually, this place intimidated him – the lobby was all marble floors and intimidating brass – but not today. Today, he was taking the night off and hanging out with his girlfriend. Today, he was stress-free. It was Friday, there was an entire weekend between himself and Monday morning, and he was officially without a care in the world. Not even Julie Cooper could freak him out.

This euphoria lasted about fifteen minutes – precisely the length of time that it took him to check in with the front desk, discover that the check needed to be handed directly to the aforementioned Julie Cooper, ride up to Julie's office in the elevator, enter her office, hand her the check, and get roped into running yet another errand.

"Ryan, I was wondering if you could help me out." Ryan wondered if anyone else had ever noticed how like a panther's Julie Cooper's eyes were. And at the moment, they seemed as if they were about to devour him whole.

"No way," he told her reflexively, "Absolutely not, whatever it is, no."

She smiled predatorily. "Ryan, you don't even know what I'm about to say."

"Probably something that's going to get me in trouble. Right?"

Julie laughed lightly. "Of course not. I've just got a little errand, remarkably similar to the one you just ran for Kirsten."

"You need me to drop off a check."

"That's it."

Ryan raised an eyebrow. "That's it?"

"That's it. Why are you so suspicious?"

Ryan raised both eyebrows.

"Okay, okay," Julie gave in, "I need you to drop off a check to one of our clients at a club in Chinatown."

Ryan laughed incredulously, shortly. "No."

"Come on, Ryan...please?" Again with the eyes.

"Kirsten's expecting me home for dinner in an hour."

"She won't mind if you miss it. It's for work; I'm her boss."

"Why can't you do it yourself, then?"

"I hate driving into the city! Anyway, I'm cooking tonight."

"_You're_ cooking?"

She smiled thinly. "That's irrelevant. What's relevant is that I desperately need for this check to be delivered tonight, and everyone else that's trustworthy has gone home already."

"You trust _me_?"

She opened her mouth angrily, closed it again, and then opened it again in a perfectly made-up smile. "Of course I do, sweetie."

Ryan rolled his eyes. "That's it. No way. Deliver your own check." He turned to go.

"I'll pay you!"

Slowly, he turned around. "Really."

Julie smiled brightly. "Naturally! Twenty dollars!" He cocked an eyebrow. She shrugged and relented. "Okay, fifty."

Ryan toyed with the idea in his mind. On the one hand, he could stand to earn some cash; he hadn't gotten an after-school job yet, and he was loath to ask the Cohens for money. On the other hand, he wasn't sure he wanted any money that Julie Cooper was about to hand out. Expelling a short breath of air, he told her, "Listen, Julie, is this legal? Because if not, I want nothing to do with it."

She smiled yet again – pretty sincerely this time, he thought – and said, "Ryan. Of course it's legal. Caleb has learned his lesson about dabbling in criminality. And if it weren't legal, I'd never ask you to do it – Kirsten would kill me!"

She sounded genuine, trustworthy. Half of the bones in his body screamed at him not to trust her, but the other half really wanted the fifty dollars. Maybe he could buy something for Lindsay, help cheer her up.

What the hell. She was right – Kirsten and Sandy would kill her if anything happened to him. Even if he couldn't trust Julie Cooper, he could trust her sense of self-preservation.

"So what's the name of this club?"

She flashed one of those Julie Cooper grins of triumph. 'The Blue Lotus. I'll give you directions if you hang on a second."

Dear God. He hoped that he wouldn't regret this.


	3. Ryan vs The Music

Author's notes: Many thanks to everyone who left reviews. My heart feels warmed:). I wasn't planning on updating any more until finals week was over, but clearly my head thought that my time was better spent in writing chapter two than in graduating from college.

And yes, the chapters will be a bit longer from here on out – things start to happen in this chapter and then snowball from there.

Disclaimer: Don't own a damn thing.

Chapter Three: Ryan vs. The Music

Ring, ring.

"Ryan, what's up?"

"Seth. Listen, tell Kirsten I won't be in for dinner. Julie sent me on another errand."

"What kind of errand?"

"I have to drop something off for her."

"Where?"

"In Chinatown."

"Chinatown? Wow, dude, that's a little far out of your way. Where in Chinatown? And more importantly, why in Chinatown? And maybe most importantly, why you? Does Julie suddenly have no employees over at the Newport Group? 'Cause I'm pretty sure that one of them is my mother."

"Yeah, I don't know. About any of those things, really. She said she didn't have anyone else free to do it for her."

"You don't know where you're going?"

"Huh?"

"You said you didn't know the answer to any of those questions, and one of the questions was where you were going..."

"Right. I'm going to this place called the Blue Lotus."

"Sounds fetching. Want company?"

"No, that's okay. I just want to get in, get out. Lindsay's coming over tonight."

"Yeah? Aunt Lindsay's coming over?"

"Shut up, man."

"I'm just sayin', it's a little weird."

"It was a little weird when we found out a month ago. Now, it's just..."

"Normal?"

"Well, maybe not normal."

"No, I'm gonna say not at all normal. I have an aunt who's younger than I am, my father is talking to my grandfather and my mother isn't, and my grandfather himself has turned into this weird, generous, kindly, I don't know..."

" Grandfather?"

"Yes! Exactly. Things are not even close to normal."

"Yeah, I guess. But Lindsay needs some normal right now, or she might, I don't know, blow a fuse or something. You know her."

"Well, not nearly as well as you do, Uncle Ryan."

"Seth...."

"Shutting up. You, Lindsay, normal, me, not making incest jokes. Got it."

"And don't forget – "

" – to tell Mom that you won't be home for dinner. I got it, man."

"Thanks. I'll see you later."

"Later."

The Blue Lotus, Ryan decided, was exactly what he had expected – that is, it was the worst possible place for him to find himself, ever. Terminally hip, full of flashing strobe lights and ultrachic girls wearing outfits made entirely of some beige-y plaid material (with matching hair, and he wasn't quite sure how they'd managed that), this was the kind of place that he'd always tried to avoid. Something loud was thumping on the sound system – it took him a few minutes to realize that it was Tubthumping, by Chumbawumba. He tried to ignore the sinking feeling that he wouldn't get through the night without punching someone or being punched.

"Ugh, _what_ is Aura wearing?" he heard a girl behind him say scornfully.

"Um, duh, it's Burberry! The late nineties are so totally in," her friend replied.

"_What_ever. I'm outie."

Ryan swallowed a smile and headed for the bar.

"I'm looking for Mr. – " he began, and then paused when the bartender swung round, all ferociously grinning teeth and beetling brows. "Whoa."

"What drink you want?" the man screeched over the music.

"Ah...I'll have a Mountain Dew. And I'm here to talk to Mr. Chia." The bartender's smile grew.

"Ahhh, Mr. Chia? You from Newport Group?"

"Yeah. I've got something to give him."

"Okay, I tell him you're here. Mountain Dew five dollars."

"Five dollars for a Mountain Dew?"

"Hey, if it has alcohol in it, it's cheaper!"

"Yeah, no thanks. Just the soda." _Five of the fifty dollars down the drain,_ he thought to himself. _Great._ He settled himself onto a bar stool and leaned back against the bar to observe his surroundings. This was an expensive place, not that he'd expected anything less. The bar was an island of light (literally of light; the bar itself was made out of some sort of fluorescent lamp and resembling nothing so much as a block of electricity) in the middle of an enormous dance floor on which hundreds of bodies gyrated in time to a song that he wasn't even going to try to place. It hadn't been played when the Lakers won the playoffs; he wouldn't know it. Stairs at three of the corners of the dance floor led both up and down, promising at diversions beyond dancing. There was only one exit that he could see and it was the door he'd come in, but he'd be willing to bet that there was at least one other way out of this place.

Gradually, he became aware of the conversation going on beside him.

"Mo, I can't believe you made those. They're beautiful!"

"Yeah, I figured it was better than doing my model for class. Anyway, do you want some?"

"Definitely. I don't have much cash on me, though."

"That's okay, you can pay me later. I know you're good for it."

Glancing over to his left to try to put faces to the voices, Ryan saw two girls – _probably college-aged_, he thought – sifting through a pile of jewelry that had been spilled somewhat haphazardly out onto the bar. A tiny Asian girl – Mo, he assumed – was extricating a pair of earrings and handing it to her friend.

"These are thirty. Cheapest I can go if I want to be able to pay my bills."

"Oh, totally worth it. Thanks, Mo! I'll see you in class."

"Yeah, maybe." Mo shifted on her seat and saw Ryan staring at the jewelry. "What?"

"Nothing. Did you make those?"

Mo smiled awkwardly. "Yeah, I guess. Why? Do you want to buy?"

"No. Well, maybe. Can I see?"

"Sure."

There were a lot of earrings in the world, he realized as he looked through the pile. Why did girls need so many pairs of earrings? They were really sick, if you thought about it – I mean, you stabbed a hole in your ear so you could hang some shiny things from it on a regular basis. How much more tribal could you get?

Hang on.

There was a pair of earrings that, if he held it in the light given off by the electric bar, he was pretty sure matched the green of Lindsay's eyes exactly. They were sort of dangly and long and had a lot of little beady things on them, and he didn't know if that was her style or whatever, but he thought that maybe – no, definitely – they were the same color as her eyes.

"How much are – " he started to ask Mo.

"Ryan! What are you doing here?" He froze. It couldn't be. Bracing himself, he turned around gingerly.

"Marissa. I could ask you the same thing." For it was indeed she. She had on a skirt that would have put some of the girls at his old high school to shame, a slinky, sparkly top, and a bright, winning smile. She was also – and here, he closed his eyes briefly in a wave of nausea and regret – piss stinking drunk.

"'S' a Friday night, innit? I c'n go out if I want to." She laid a hand on his arm and put her face close to his, half as a come on and half in genuine need of balance. He didn't move her hand away, because what was he going to do? Let her fall? He did, however, move his head away from hers.

"You're drunk."

She giggled, a silvery peal of laughter that was nearly swallowed by the music. "This isn' drunk. Just...happy."

He sighed. "Right. Who are you here with?"

She pressed a finger to her lips. "Shhhhh....can't tell."

"What? Marissa," he sighed in exasperation, "I don't have time for this. Who are you here with?"

"Nobody. Myself," she pouted.

"Right. Well, you're coming home with me, just as soon as I get done here."

A hundred-watt smile spread across Marissa's face. "Really? Aww...thanks, Ryan! I love you soooo much."

He winced. "Okay. One second. Hey, how much were – " he turned back around to better converse with Mo, but she was gone. "Fuck."

Marissa started giggling wildly. "Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Luck fuck. Lucky fuck!"

Ryan stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. "This is not happening."

Her brows creased in puzzlement. "Fucky luck?"

"Yeah, that's for damn sure," Ryan sighed. "Okay, Marissa, I have to make a phone call. Stay. Here."

"Okay!" she said happily. "I will stay here. Right here. No moving. Promise!"

Ring, ring.

"Ryan?"

"Linds! So, I'm a little late."

"I noticed. Where _are_ you? You sound like you're trapped in an episode of _I Love the 90's_ or something."

"It's a long story. I'm really sorry – Kirsten had me run an errand, and then Julie – it's complicated. Anyway, I'm in Chinatown, and it took longer to get here than I expected, and it's taking me longer _here_ than I expected, but I promise that I'll be back soon."

"It's okay. I've just been catching up on my homework."

"What catching up do _you_ ever have to do on a Friday night? I thought you'd finished everything already."

"...."

"Linds?"

"If you must know, I'm practicing my penmanship."

"...."

"Ryan Atwood, are you laughing at me?"

"...."

"'Cause I'm so funny."

"Yep. What movies did you get?"

"I'm not sure if I'm telling you now."

"What, because I laughed at you?"

"And my perfectly legitimate exercise in handwriting clarification, yes."

"Well, you do need the work."

"Hey, not nearly as much as you do. _Blackadder II_."

"I'm sorry, why am I a giant snake?"

"It's not an insult, it's what I got. _Blackadder II_. You'll like it."

"Never heard of it."

"It's a British comedy show, very witty. Bite-sized episodes for maximum viewing pleasure. You'll like it, I promise."

"I can't wait. Listen, I've got to go. I'll be back as soon as I can – feel free to raid my bookshelf if you get sick of calligraphy or whatever."

"Will do. Bye, Ryan."

"Bye."

Ryan snapped his cell phone shut and turned to talk to Marissa.

Who was gone.

Oh, shit.

Now how had he not seen that coming?

He leaned over the bar. "Hey, have you seen the girl I was with? Skinny, sparkly top, brown hair? She just left."

The bartender grinned at him. "No girl. Sorry."

Ryan ran his hands through his hair. "Right. Of course. Why would you notice one girl in here?" His brain worked madly. On the one hand, there was Marissa, hammered beyond belief and set loose upon an unsuspecting club. On the other, there was this Mr. Chia, who was almost certainly expecting his check in a timely manner. Mr. Chia wasn't exactly rushing to meet Ryan, however, and Marissa could cause some serious damage – to herself or to others – if she were allowed to remain a free agent in this situation.

Decision made, Ryan turned to the bartender once more. "Listen, I just need to look for my friend, I'll be around. Can you send someone to get me when Mr. Chia needs me?"

"Sure, sure," the bartender replied.

"Awesome. Thanks, man." And Ryan set off into the club to find Marissa.

Threading his way through dancing bodies and neon lighting, he felt a little bit as if his head was about to pop off from the music and the lights. He couldn't imagine doing this sort of thing every night, much less working in a place like this. He wondered if that's what it would have been like, being with Marissa for the long-term – would he have had to come to places like this every weekend or so? She hadn't minded staying home with him at the beginning of their relationship, but who knows what might have happened once she got bored? He shuddered.

Lost in thought as he was, he was caught completely unawares when he turned around and found himself face to face with Oliver.

Who smirked a "Hello, Ryan," as if he'd never flipped out, threatened to kill himself and Marissa, and been committed to a sanatorium.

Ryan blinked once, twice. He really, really wished that he hadn't sworn off of punching people.

_Terrific. This is exactly what I need. _


End file.
